The National Basketball League of Canada won’t begin planning its 2018-19 schedule for at least a couple of weeks, but we already know the St. John’s Edge should be playing most of their home games during the last half of months next winter.
The Edge will be sharing Mile One Centre with the ECHL team that’s expected to be introduced as the Newfoundland Growlers next week and with the new hockey club having already announced its schedule for the inaugural season, one can easily mark out available dates for the Edge.
There is regular pattern to the ECHL team’s schedule, with a home stand during the first half the month and a road trip during the following couple of weeks.
Schedule
Away
For example, the new club plays its first four games of the season Oct. 12-17 at Mile One, then embarks on what will be its longest road trip, an eight-game, 16 day odyssey beginning Oct. 19.Then it’s back in St. John’s for four more games during early November before heading out of town again, presumably making way for the Edge to start their second campaign.
The 2017-18 NBL Canada season began last Nov. 18 and the Edge opened up with five road games, in part to help give the front office more time to get ready for the new venture at home. The basketball team’s first-ever game at Mile One was Dec. 1, but with the way the 2018-19 ECHL schedule is set up, it looks like there’s a pretty good chance the Edge will open at home this mid-November.
While the hockey team’s schedule will certainly have repercussions for that of the Edge, the basketball team has already its influence on how the ECHL expansion club will present itself at home.
That’s in regard to the start time of games, which traditionally had been 7:30 p.m. for weekdays and Saturdays over the two decades of the American Hockey League in St. John’s. However, the Edge had great success with 7 p.m. starts and now their new hockey brethren have decided to do the same.
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A couple of notes about the ECHL team’s schedule:
• The Newfoundland team’s Oct. 27 game in Brampton against the Beast will create ECHL history as the league’s first-ever game between two Canadian-based teams. There was once another Canadian team in the league — the Victoria (B.C.) Salmon King — but they left the ECHL in 2011, three years before Brampton arrived.
• Two road trips involve games in widely dispersed cities. In November, the Newfoundland team will play in Reading, Pa., then travel to Jacksonville, Fla., which is 1,400 kilometres away. In February, the trip starts in Georgia and South Carolina and finishes up in Brampton, with about 1,450 km in between. However, don’t expect the players to be facing endless hours on the bus. In those cases, the team is planning to use plane travel to bridge the distance..
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